Conclusions

It seems that the biggest mistake a developer can make is getting fans’ expectations up with assurances of greatness and then not deliver on those promises. All of the games that I used as “failure” examples were originally expected to do very well by critics (with the possible exception of The Amazing Spider-Man 2). Each of these games also has redeeming qualities and aspects of gameplay that work well. Take No Man’s Sky for instance; I feel that if the developers hadn’t hyped the game up so much and outright lied about what players would be able to do then the critics and the consumers might not have been so harsh. No Man’s Sky is a fantastic example of what procedural generation can do for open world gameplay and it really is a gorgeous game. If the game had been marketed as more of creative and leisurely experience then the audience would not have to judge by the elements that were promised but absent (multiplayer interaction for example).

In regard to my topic of enhancing game characteristics, five out of five of the “failed” games had faulty or non-existent questing elements. That said, The Last of Us, which won DICE Game of the Year for 2013 and achieved a 10/10 score on IGN, does not utilize questing and only focuses on progression through the main story. I believe that the Last of Us’ story is so deep and emotional that excessive questing would end up taking away from the immersion.

Other criteria that appeared to be correlated to failure were poor reward systems, dull level design, progression that is too slow or too fast or too inconsistent, and shallow narrative arcs – each of these categories had four out of five “failed” games. Lack of detail or care in any of these categories appeared to have a much larger impact on score than flawed game mechanics, controls, or lack of social gaming elements.

When I looked over the checklists for successful games, it seems that well-roundedness is the common denominator for a game’s critical appraise. Most of these games had one or two things missing on the checklist but all other criteria were met with leaps and bounds. They didn’t just “tick off” the checklist categories, they put detail, care and craftsmanship into each area of the game and each element seemed to add on another layer of quality so that the developers presented a masterpiece to the audience. There was no laziness or cutting corners, the developers of these successful games delivered the product that they had promised to their fans and even went beyond their expectations.